Plumbing & Mechanical Contractor

RSS

Meet 2025 Next Gen All-Star: Chase Johnson

Meet 2025 Next Gen All-Star:  Zane Elliot

Meet 2025 Next Gen All-Star: Michael Caruso

This year’s group of NextGen All-Stars is full of young talent in the trades who are making a difference in the world every day. These innovators and leaders are forging the path for the next generation. Congratulations to this group of industry leaders in our Top 20 Under 40 list of plumbing professionals!

Building codes are becoming stricter, carbon targets are becoming law, and there’s more funding available for compliance. For those in plumbing and mechanical trades, system design now involves meeting emissions goals, leveraging incentives, and navigating changing regulations.

If you’re leading a plumbing team today, you’re probably dealing with a whole mix of generations, attitudes, and learning styles. The top-down, “Because I said so,” approach may have worked in the past (barely), but it’s not cutting it now. The truth is, people don’t want to be managed—they want to be developed.

The third edition of the Radiant & Hydronics All Stars eBook highlights the latest technologies and design trends in radiant heating. It features insights from our All-Star Roundtable on innovations and challenges, along with design trends for residential and commercial applications.

Baby Boomers own the most homes in the U.S., but Millennials and Gen Z are gaining. In 2024, Millennials made up 29% of homebuyers, while 33% of older Gen Z members (around 27) are homeowners, compared to about 40% of the same-age Baby Boomers.

It’s about clarity and consistency. Are your techs empowered to say no to unreasonable requests? Do they feel supported when a client pushes back? Do your customers understand the value behind your pricing, and the fact that your team isn’t just delivering a service, they’re delivering their skill, time and care?

To help control losses and to make insurance available to certain homes, more insurers are requiring plumbing leak detection devices as a condition of coverage, alongside smoke detector requirements that are ubiquitous throughout the industry.